James Manning | Staff Writer | jmanning7@mail.smcvt.edu
When people think of ‘shares’, the tendency is to think of buying stock, not vegetables. But you do not need to be a business major to get some shares of your own on the St. Michael’s campus this year. The CSA at the St. Michael’s Farm, open for registration now, is currently offering shares of produce for students, alumni, and employees.
CSAs, or Community Supported Agriculture programs, have become an increasingly popular way to access fresh produce. The one at St. Michael’s offers regular fresh produce from the college farm to students, alumni and employees who sign up for shares. Sign-ups opened March 24, and will continue until all the available shares are purchased. Interested parties can register through a link on the farm.smcvt Instagram account. Once they are registered and the program begins, they can pick up their produce in STE 123.
While most slots of the 50 available may already be filled, Farm Manager Christine Gall encourages students to sign up sooner rather than later. “Registration is open until we max out,” Gall said. “We’ll probably start packing orders in mid-April, but we might still have open slots.”
The program isn’t just for the short period until the end of the academic year. “Our CSA runs the full length of the growing season,” Gall said. “If you’re a freshman and you buy a CSA share now, you’ll still have that account when you come back as a sophomore. Those accounts are valid from now until November of the following year.”
Students can buy in to the CSA at shares of $50 or $100, while employees and alumni can buy in at larger shares of $150 or up, according to the official CSA FAQ, located on the farm website. There are many CSA programs across the country, with varying scopes and models, but Gall emphasizes the flexibility offered by this one. “Customers can choose what product they want, when they want to access it, and the quantity. Almost like online grocery shopping.”
Kristen Hindes, an associate director at the Durick Library, is one of a number of St. Michael’s staff to take advantage of this program. “It’s a pay down system, so I get to choose the things that they’re offering each week,” she said. “They send out an email each week, and you place your order by Tuesday evening, and you can pick it up on Thursday or Friday.”
The farm tries to keep costs reasonable, according to Gall. “There’s a lot of folks that think that local produce is automatically going to be expensive. We intentionally price our produce cheaper than what you would see in a grocery store,” she said. “We have the flexibility to lower that pricing, because we’re not trying to compete with external farmers. We want our food to be accessible to our community, and we know that oftentimes college students don’t want to spend money for a whole host of reasons.”
Because the food is grown on the farm, it does not have to travel far from the farm to the customer. “If I get spinach from the CSA share compared to spinach that I buy in the grocery store, the spinach that I buy from the organic farm lasts at least a week longer,” said Hindes.
The farm at St. Michael’s was established in 2008 with “a seed planted by two students, an English major and an art major,” and has only expanded since, per its website. The farm has expanded to two acres of land located across from main campus, behind the observatory, which is next to St. Michael’s Fire and Rescue. The farm grows a wide array of crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, and squash, along with a variety of greens and other veggies.
Work on the farm doesn’t stop in winter. “It’s more active in the summer, just based on the growing patterns,” said
Sarah Coloney ’26, a worker on the St. Michael’s farm who, among other things, works to package and prepare orders for the CSA. “We have our hoop houses during the winter, where we have a bunch of stuff put in the ground, and that stuff starts to grow during the late spring season.”
Coloney and other farm workers also “harvest, wash, and pack” during the summer heat of the harvest season, and lead volunteers through the tasks required. Some workers, according to Gall, are in the school’s farm and food intensive course, while some are interns that work in the spring and fall. Some, like Coloney, are employed by the farm during the summer.
For most of the farm’s existence, the CSA has been operating and bringing in revenue. They operate a farm stand as well, but the CSA is the crown jewel. According to Coloney, it’s the largest source of revenue for the farm. “The CSA gets priority,” she said. “A lot of people, they’ll go through all their CSA money, and then they’ll recharge their account. You can stop by the farm stand and use the money on your CSA. You have a lot of flexibility.” The farm stand, in STE 119, is close to the pickup for CSA orders, and offers a second option for those who aren’t able to purchase CSA shares.
So where does all the money for such a large operation come from? “The farm essentially pays for itself. Between our CSA sales and all of our farm stand sales, we’re able to generate enough to purchase all of our annual inputs,” Gall said. “It’s a true business.”